Photograph
by Cherie-24-Addict
Summary: "I'm wondering why no one can save me the same way you do." Ziva's "dead", and Tony doesn't know how to cope. All he has are bourbon and painful memories. Spoilers 7x01.  Songfic; title is name of the song by Diane Birch. Part 3 in the Quinceanera series.


_I put a photograph inside the frame of my heart_

_Forever you'll be the better half watching the rest fall apart_

She's gone.

A month ago, she stood on the tarmac of an airfield in Tel Aviv and watched as my plane took off and left her back in her homeland, with Mossad, with her father, with her past. More importantly, without me, Gibbs, and McGee. Most importantly…without me.

I knew it was for the best – there was no way in hell she would be coming back to NCIS, to the team, after all I had done to her. I killed her crazy ninja Mossad boyfriend who turned out to be one of the less subtle bad guys I've ever fought and accidentally killed. Which, actually, brings me up to a grand total of one. Look at what it did to our relationship – she pressed a gun into my thigh as I lay helplessly on the sidewalk in Israel. If that's not pent-up Ziva anger, I don't know what is.

Despite the anger issues, and the paper clip threats, the constant tap-dancing on my nerves, the façade she always puts up… Ziva is one of the best people I've ever met. She's crazy smart, both in the bull pen and especially on the street. She's downright hilarious, especially when she messes up her American idioms.

"They drive me up the hall," I've heard her mutter in an annoyed tone. And it makes me smile.

She's absolutely beautiful, which is obvious to anyone who's ever met her, no matter what she's wearing or what her hair looks like. And so it drives me crazy when she plays on that, swinging her hips in a dance or rocking her hips side to side as she walks, choosing to candidly turn around and slap her butt.

She calls me on my crap – not in a Gibbs way, which is a slap to the back of the head, or in a McTattletale way, which is more of an unnecessary stutter, but in a way that I understand and get that she actually wants me to change for the better, for myself.

If I didn't know any better, if I didn't realize just what lies in front of me, I'd say I was in love with her. But I'm not. I'm not in love with Officer David. I can't be in love with her.

For my own sanity, and for hers, I just can't. After all, the crazy ninja has always been able to read my mind.

* * *

_Nothing's gonna change the look on my face_

_You'll see me spending the rest of my days_

"Tony," McGee says to me.

I ignore him. I'm listening to a playlist of songs Ziva gave me ages ago. Now all it does is remind me of her. Michael Buble, the Police, Diane Birch, and Norah Jones; it doesn't matter what I'm listening to, all that matters is that Ziva is the only one I can see, a tear in her eye and a chip on her shoulder.

"Tony!"

A Diane Birch piano sequence plays in my head, and my eyes unfocus rapidly, so that I have no clue of where I am or why I'm alive. After all, she isn't, and I'm her partner. I should be at the bottom of the ocean, with her and that ship. I was supposed to protect her, and instead I forced her away. I've been forcing her away for years, and she finally left me.

And now she's gone. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do.

I can hear her say, "Move on, Tony. I am dead. I was meant to die. Move on with your life."

Or, "Why do you care, Tony? We hate each other. Do you not remember?"

Sometimes, it's, "Why didn't you stop me from leaving? If you love me, why did you not care enough to keep me from staying in Israel? What stopped you?"

To that, I have no answer, I don't even know the answer myself.

Suddenly, out of the blur of my mind, McProbius appears, standing awkwardly at my desk, as if he magically arrived by Floo powder.

"Blah, blah," he says.

"Spit it out, McGee," I hear her say.

"Computer stuff," he continues, and this takes at least ten minutes. I can just imagine the wheels turning in Ziva's head as she comes up with a slightly crazy, very violent plan to shut her up.

"Blah, blah," he finishes.

I don't need this. My head is too confused. Ziva's not dead, so why is everyone moving on instead of keeping track of her?

Oh, believe me, I know I sound crazy, saying that Ziva's not dead. That's only because if she was dead, the world would stop turning.

* * *

_Waving tomorrow goodbye_

_A tear in my eye_

_Nothing can bring back that feeling_

Sometimes I imagine having a future with Ziva. Coming into work in the same car, cooking each other meals, holding her close to me in bed. Making love to her. Making her feel loved. Having inside jokes with her, sharing a kind of unique bond. Partner, best friend, lover. Quite a combination, and very becoming on one Miss David.

I wonder if Gibbs ever considered throwing away Rule #12. Did his resolve waver even just one time when it comes to the number one rule he's implemented? He and Jenny couldn't make it work the first time, but before the horror show that was our trip to Los Angeles, they had begun to rebuild their connection again. The choices they made had brought them to the point where they kept meeting, again and again. I like to think it was fate.

It gives me the same kind of feeling: I will find Ziva again, somehow. Maybe literally, at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Maybe figuratively, jumping from a roof. Maybe even more figuratively, dying in a hail of bullets, or at a machine built specifically for pain, a la Westley in _The Princess Bride._

Life was a really stupid invention, in some ways. It was built, in my own personal opinion, as a machine built specifically to study just how much pain one person can take. Life gives me the worst father on the face of the planet. It takes away Kate Todd in a split second. It nearly kills Abby. It kills Paula, right under my watch. It screws up the potential of my relationship with Jeanne Benoit. It shoots Jenny in three different places as she dies in a diner in Southern California. It splits up the team so that I'm forced to sit on a fucking boat while Ziva endangers her life again with Mossad. It causes Ziva to come back, then hate me. And then, it kills Ziva.

I think my life is trying to tell me that I have serious problems.

Not that it's my life that matters, when Ziva David is the one who's dead.

* * *

_Go on, fade out the stars in the sky_

_I'm wondering why_

_No one can save me the same way you do_

The days are just passing by in a blur. Somehow, the world has this grand illusion that life can still go on without a certain dark-haired assassin, strong and vulnerable, perfect but with a heart, eyes like melting chocolate. No sexy, soothing accent that speaks of a million different cities, a million different times, a million things seen that should not have been. No one to kick their feet up on the table, washing someone else's blood off of their feet after a long day of kickboxing. No one to lick your ear slowly and thoroughly in the middle of a required seminar on sexual harassment. No one to have fake sex with you in a fancy hotel room as FBI technology records your every move. No one to assure you that at the end of the day, you are a good person, and not the ass that everyone believes you have always been, are being right now, and will always be for the rest of your days.

I've gained a lot from different members of the team, but none of them have come close to her. I'm going to try not to so much as think her name. Maybe it'll help.

Gibbs has been a father figure to me – he's taught me a hell of a lot, made me a much better person. But he's so easily disappointed, so specific, setting such high standards so that I tend to feel that I'm always failing at something.

Kate was always game for banter, for theatricality, for trying to teach me the error of my ways. I admit I was a little attracted to her, but not in the way that I actually considered pursuing a relationship with her. Instead, it added a little fuel to the fire and made our partnership more stable.

Elf Lord annoyed me like hell in the beginning, but he's been a pretty stable friend and "little brother". McGee is beginning to become much more confident in what he does, and that actually makes me happy.

Abby has taught me that showing emotions and learning to appreciate people is not a bad thing. She has also taught me that Caf-Pow! and a farting pillow work wonders for your mood.

Ducky has been a stabilizing force and has always donated a fine bottle of wine whenever I've needed it.

But none of them are her. God, none of them could ever be what Ziva was…is…was… to me.

* * *

_I put a broken dream next to the memory of you_

_Forever we'll be together till fate brings me somebody new_

Damn it, Ziva! Why the hell did you have to leave? I screwed up, but you could have stayed! Hell, I've screwed up plenty of times, far worse than what I did, and you stayed. Before now, you'd never left me of your own volition.

You stayed after Gibbs killed your half-brother (see, I got that relationship right for once). You allowed Jenny (Director Sheppard, oops) to persuade you to become part of the team, in what you thought would be a temporary assignment. Even after all the harassment, all the hurt I put you through in that first year, you stayed and became a part of the team, really and truly.

You stayed after Gibbs left and I grew a Gibbs complex, and we actually became closer through those movie nights every Tuesday. Bond, Hitchock, Capra – none of it was off-limits, and it became something that only the two of us shared. Pizza, beer, a movie, and falling asleep on the couch by the time of the credits rolled. The feeling of you wrapped in my arms is one I'll never forget.

You even stayed after the whole debacle with Jeanne Benoit and Operation Lodestone. I would have understood if you'd asked to partner up with Gibbs or McGee after all that I'd done to you, after I'd betrayed you, again and again, for an entire year. Despite everything I did, you put up with it. You smiled your sad smile and continued on, business as usual.

The only reason you didn't stay after Jenny's death was because Vance forced us apart. You would say, "It was inevitable." Except, according to you, nothing was inevitable.

The problem is, Ziva, it was inevitable that I'd fall into this place where all I can do is love you…because, in a cruel twist of fate that even Gibbs couldn't have seen, you're not coming back. Not this time, Officer David. You're in the Indian Ocean, where I couldn't screw up and yet miraculously save you.

God, Ziva…you couldn't have died in, oh, I don't know, fifty-odd years? You had to choose now? How am I supposed to recover from this?

* * *

_I can't erase the look on your face_

_Guess I'll be spending the rest of my days_

All I can remember is Ziva looking out on the tarmac. Watching the aircraft carrier fly away. Watching me without her, which, to be honest, is not a pretty sight at all.

Nine months ago, when Ziva got hurt in that explosion in a night club in Casablanca, and then when she came back, I swore to myself that the only way I would let Ziva leave again would be over my dead body. I don't know what changed, but somehow I lost hope that I could keep that promise. I guess a part of me feels like Ziva didn't want me, didn't need me as her partner. After all, look how much trouble I've caused her in the past few years.

Jeanne. Enough said.

Jenny. If not for me, if not for my stupidity and my innate hunger for sand, sunshine, and whatever else Los Angeles had to offer, if I had only listened to Ziva, Jenny might be alive.

Gibbs. If Jenny were alive, he might not be as emotionless as he seems now. She changed something in him, it's easy enough to see that.

Michael. God knows I hated the son of a bitch, but I can just hear Ziva screaming: "You could have walked away, but no, you let him up! You put four in his chest!"

When she was standing down there, all I could see was the look on her face. A little tearful, a little regretful, a little hopeful that we could all move on from what happened. Specifically, hope that she in particular could learn to forget us and compartmentalize us in one of the ninja compartments in her head.

Well, if she couldn't get over me, then I sure as hell can't get over her. I may not be the most reliable man you've ever met, but you can count on me for that.

* * *

_Waving tomorrow goodbye_

_A tear in my eye_

_Nothing can bring back that feeling_

Abby's standing at my desk now. I can honestly say that I have no idea why. Everything is blurring together: the days, the cases, the job, the team, the empty beer bottles in my living room…

Do we have a case? Does it even matter whether or not we have a case?

Oh, yeah. Now I remember. It's the usual. A dead Marine, white male, about twenty-five. His body was found at Quantico. He was shot, and there's a young, petite blonde sobbing her eyes out in the conference room.

And how do I know all this if I didn't know there was a case? It's because all the cases are starting to become the same to me. Maybe I'm exaggerating just a little bit, but when… she… was around, the rhyme and rhythm to my days was at least a little more interesting.

Whether she was threatening me with one of eighteen ways to kill me with nothing but a medium-sized paper clip, screwing up her idioms so that absolutely no one but me could understand what she was saying, or swaying her hips precariously in only the way that Ziva can to her favorite David Broza song, she always found a way to keep me entertained and on my toes. What others called annoying, I called fun. When others defined a line that I couldn't cross, Ziva and I each toed it and occasionally went over it. What others described as eye sex, well…

Okay, they were right on that count.

But really. I am stuck in this rut that no longer has any meaning to me. Ziva's gone. By all accounts, the world should have stopped turning. Then I remember: for me, it has.

"Thoughts, and words, and emotions," Abby says, "and stuff." Or at least that's what my mind is translating her words as.

She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, then zooms away. "Thanks for listening!" she says through her tears. Then, she disappears into the blur.

I can honestly say that I have no clue what the hell just happened.

* * *

_Go on, fade out the stars in the sky_

_I'm wondering why_

_No one can save me the same way you do_

It's only now that I vaguely realize that Ziva still has a lot of things of mine that she's stolen over the years. I blink and try to get rid of the fog as I slowly pad over to her desk. For a moment, I don't want to touch it; if I'm going through her stuff for my stuff, it either means that she and I had a bitch of a breakup…or she's dead. And I know it's the latter, but I don't know that, too. There's always a little bit of hope, a gut feeling that I would know for sure that she was dead if she was. And I can say that I haven't felt it. Not yet, anyway.

Then, I swallow my pride, sit down in her seat, and start to look through the drawers. The first one reveals five of her old knives. I gulp and move on.

The second one holds a few things: a photo of two little girls and the smiling teenage boy that stood with them; a ring in the shape of a star of David; her back-up Glock; and the _24 _DVD I lent her ages ago. It still has that note on it:

_Ziva,_

_Jack Bauer isn't quite as kickass as you, but I assure you, you will be addicted. I said I wouldn't become another 24 addict, and look what happened to me. Look how I turned out, huh?_

_Just kidding. Let me start over…_

_Watch it, become addicted, and then keep it away from me for as long as you like._

_Tony_

I find it funny that she actually followed my instructions on that one. I can just imagine her chuckling to herself as she read the note, thinking that I was absolutely insane.

I am, but what does it matter now?

I open the final drawer and nearly break down then and there: it's a picture of us in Los Angeles, her looking like a goddess in that bikini, and me, soaking everything in. My smile is wide as I play with a loose tendril of hair, while she halfheartedly jabs me in the jugular.

God. I miss her like hell. It's as simple as that.

* * *

_Waving tomorrow goodbye_

_A tear in my eye_

_Nothing can bring back that feeling_

There's a finality to everything that we do now. It had always been like that for me, I suppose, considering I've spent my entire working life in some kind of homicide or major case unit. I remember the victims, some of them more than others. I remember the officers and the agents we've lost over the years, especially the friends. Kate and Jenny are firmly in the latter category, and when thinking of them, I'm not as sad as I used to be, although Jenny's death is still painful. Still, I never expected Ziva to be in the same category as them. I hoped that she wouldn't be, considering our line of work, but I never thought it could really happen to us. Ziva and I? Psssh! We were an unbreakable, unstoppable, uncontrollable team. Whether or not you liked us, you respected us (especially the chick with the knife hidden in her combat boot. Ah, Rule #9.)

Now, it feels like with every case that is vaguely solved in the fogginess of my world, with the closure that every family member and friend gets, I feel like Ziva is drowning, again and again. Stranded at the bottom of the Indian Ocean with nowhere to go, all because of a goddamn storm. She didn't go out the way she would have seen fit: in a haze of bullets, protecting her partner, a witness, or an asset, doing her duty. She didn't go out the way I hoped she would have: peacefully, in her sleep, having died of old age.

Damn it, she wasn't even thirty, and she'd already seen so many bad things, much more than I or McGee or Abby have ever seen. It's like they might as well stick a garishly-lighted sign at the spot of the capsize: **Here lies Ziva David, twenty-nine years old, brought to her end in yet another twisted cruelty of fate. She will be missed by her NCIS family. DiNozzo will always love her.**

Because, quite honestly, I will. I'm sad as hell now, and any memory of her makes me want to sob, but if it means I still feel something, that she's still with me, still in my heart, then I'll go through it.

I'll go through it for her.

* * *

_Go on, fade out the stars in the sky_

_I'm wondering why_

_No one can save me the same way you do_

"Go home, DiNozzo," Gibbs says from his desk.

I ignore him. There's no reason for me to go home, unless it's to drown myself in the bottles of bourbon I somehow bought after Ziva…

Damn it. It hurts like hell, more than ever, to think of Ziva.

Ziva changed me, in so many ways it's almost unimaginable. She's the reason I am who I am right now. She's also the reason I get migraines, the reason I have back trouble, the reason why I now have a certified phobia of paper clips. But she's the reason I want a committed relationship, the reason I rediscovered the meaning of serving one's country, the discovery that I could fall in love while being a cop.

"Tony, go home," Gibbs says again.

I can't take this anymore. How come everyone gets to move on but me? Why do I have to be the one in a daze, the one who doesn't know the definition of a coping mechanism, the one that will always hold her close? Why isn't he suffering like this? Why isn't his heart ripping out of his chest.

"No," I say to him.

"NO?" he repeats, taken aback. I've never defied a direct order from Gibbs before. Must be a side effect of the grief complex.

I slowly lift my head up to meet his eyes, and I'm pretty sure he gets the message, because I'm seeing it reflected in his eyes. Pain, deep pain. Deep love, love for her, for the one that left us. Anger at the fact that I can't move on. Adrenaline, because a) this is Gibbs we're talking about and b) I really, really want a glass (or seven) of bourbon right now.

"Go home, Tony," he says, softer than before. "Don't make that be an order."

I'm a little shocked. I dizzily stand up, lunge for my backpack, and start to walk towards the elevator wondering how bad it's gotten that Gibbs has gone soft on me.

I don't go home that night. I go down to my private stash in autopsy.

* * *

_Little light, little light_

_Oh, we're gonna make it right_

The first glass of bourbon. Phone sex. Pizza in the rain. Civil war caskets. Fake sex. Prison. Idiom trouble. Paper clips. MorphPro babies. Gibbs leaving.

_Little light, little light_

_Oh, we're gonna make it right_

The second glass of bourbon. Movie nights. The feeling of her body in my arms. Asleep on the couch. Clearing her name. Operation Lodestone. Jeanne Benoit. The hurt look in Ziva's eyes. Tommy and Lisa, making love in the desert sand. La Grenouille.

_Little light, little light_

_Oh, we're gonna make it right_

The third glass of bourbon. Getting over Jeanne. Believing in soul mates. The La Grenouille murder investigation. Becoming best friends. Jokes to a whole new level. Los Angeles. God, Los Angeles. The bikini photo. Jenny. Leaving the Navy Yard. Four months on a fucking boat, with only her picture to center me.

_Little light, little light_

_Oh, we're gonna make it right_

The fourth glass of bourbon. Vance. War games. Michael. Eli. My inhibitions. Her inhibitions. Love. Sadness. Anger. Anguish. On my back, at gunpoint. Her on the tarmac. Her sinking into the sea. Me drowning in my own despair.

I slip into fitful sleep before I can even pour the fifth glass.

_Little light, little light_

_Oh, we're gonna make it right…_


End file.
